1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to the art of appliances and, more particularly, to an appliance system provided in a building wherein access to various compartments of the system is accommodated from both inside and outside of the building.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
In past years, perhaps more prevalently in more rural settings, it was not uncommon to find certain perishable food items being delivered directly to a home or business by food suppliers. For example, it was not uncommon to have various dairy products directly delivered to a residence and placed in an insulated, outside box or the like. Mainly due to the convenience, the direct delivery of food items to homes and businesses is now becoming even more popular. The increasing number of food delivery companies particularly evidences this popularity.
For instance, many companies employ refrigerated trucks to store a wide range of food products for sale and immediate delivery directly to homeowners. That is, a salesman personally greets the consumer and a direct food-for-money exchange is made. In addition, it is known for homeowners to contract with a food delivery service which supplies preselected food items periodically. In addition to these conventional food service companies, certain supermarket stores are initiating projects wherein fresh food grocery orders can be taken by phone or over the internet, with the groceries being delivered directly to the customer at a specified location. This service can be accomplished with or without the customer actually being present at the time of delivery.
With this increase in popularity in food delivery services comes a heightened awareness of the possible dangers, particularly security risks. This potential problem is of particular concern in situations wherein delivery personnel must be granted unattended access to the home or business because perishable food items need to be stored in a controlled environment, i.e., in a refrigerator. To address this concern, it has heretofore been proposed to expose a fresh food refrigerator compartment to the exterior of a house or other building wherein the delivery personnel can simply stock the refrigerator with fresh food items which can be later consumed by the customer. In some proposed arrangements, the refrigerator is positioned at an exterior wall of a building such that the fresh food compartment can be accessed from both the interior and exterior of the building. With this arrangement, the consumer does not need to transfer the products inside after a delivery is made. However, such an arrangement again raises concerns about access to within the building by the delivery personnel.
Despite the increased awareness of such delivery systems, their popularity is still fairly low such that there exists a need in the art for an improved system which will not only address security concerns, but which is extremely versatile in the quantity and type of deliveries that can be received. The known arrangements which simply provide an exteriorly exposed structure for certain deliveries adds some level of convenience to the consumer, but the desire would be to provide a secure, combined exterior/interior arrangement which enables, not only the safe delivery of refrigerated fresh foods, but also products which need to be frozen or heated, as well as products which do not require any specific environmentally controlled storage zone.
The present invention is directed to an appliance access system for a building including an exterior wall provided with a door which can be opened to expose a plurality of environmentally varying storage zones for receiving a wide range of deliverable products. In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the system defines a plurality of compartments, which can be either heated or cooled. In the most preferred form of the invention, the exterior door can be opened to expose a refrigerator having both fresh food and freezer compartments, an oven having a heating compartment or cavity, and even a storage zone for non-perishable items. Each compartment/zone preferably has an associated internal or sub-exterior door which can be appropriately marked for aiding delivery personnel.
Therefore, the invention is concerned with a versatile product storage system combining various known appliance features, either as separate units or integrated devices, to enable a wide range of products to be delivered and stored for later use from outside the building, but which can also be readily accessed from within the building. To this end, it is desired to provide structure linking interior and exterior access doors of the system in a manner which prevents opening of the exterior access door if the interior access door is open. From the outside, opening of the exterior door is controlled by a latching system, preferably electronically controlled, such as through the use of a punch pad. The exterior door is preferably camouflaged due to the construction of the side of the building so that no attention is even drawn to the existence of the door.
With this overall construction, the appliance access system of the invention provides for the safe delivery of a wide range of products, including food items which need to be maintained slightly below room temperature, frozen, heated or otherwise. In addition, delivery is convenient, with a single exterior door providing access to multiple environmentally varying compartments which, in turn, are separately accessible from the interior of the building. In any event, additional objects, features and advantages of the invention will become more readily apparent from the following detailed description of a preferred embodiment thereof when taken in conjunction with the drawings wherein like reference numerals refer to corresponding parts in the several views.